Air France 447

[FA Mikey]

SAO PAULO, Brazil — An Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris lost contact with air traffic controllers over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday. Brazil immediately began a search mission off its northeastern coast.

Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand said. The flight left Rio on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time.

The plane disappeared about 190 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian air force spokesman said. The air force began a search began Monday morning near Fernando de Noronha, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with air force policy.

full story here

 

[s80dude]

Very tragic news. Prayers to the families of those lost.

 

[phasersonstun2]

Take nothing for granted. Hope it made it somewhere.

 

[ggiby]

Take nothing for granted. Hope it made it somewhere.

Pray for those on board as well as their families...

 

[beachboy]

We may never know what happened to those on flight 447. They are certainly heavy in my thoughts. The aviation world need answers and the 30 day clock to find the black box is ticking. It really stresses the need to move to a GPS based aviation system.

 

[beachboy]

OH I agree. IF they did land on water the search area is the size of Europe. Is anyone sending naval fleets besides Brazil? I think it would be a nice gesture for the US to send some support to the French navy

 

[ussnark]

OH I agree. IF they did land on water the search area is the size of Europe. Is anyone sending naval fleets besides Brazil? I think it would be a nice gesture for the US to send some support to the French navy

Anyone notice the captain's total flight time?

 

[Harry Callahan]

Anyone notice the captain's total flight time?

Capt. total time 11,000 hours of which 1.700 was on the A330. one co pilot had 3,000 hours & the other 6,000 hours according to a CNN report.

 

[FWAAA]

TAM pilots report seeing what looked like fire:

Pilots flying a commercial jet from Paris to Rio de Janeiro for Brazil's largest airline, TAM, spotted what they thought was fire in the ocean along the Air France jet's route early Monday, the airline said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

Brazilian Air Force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said authorities were investigating the report, according to the Agencia Brasil official news service.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090602/ap_on_...ca/brazil_plane

 

[FWAAA]

Two debris fields spotted:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/brazil_plane

 

[UPNAWAY]

If the debris matches then it must have been a mid air explosion.

 

[FA Mikey]

Could just as easy be like the last Airbus crash, where a large section of the plane just comes off.

 

[FWAAA]

I'm thinking there's a large probablility that we'll never know what brought this plane down. Ships are on their way to the debris fields but they might not be reliable indicators of the location of the sunken wreckage due to currents/storms/etc. The debris wasn't spotted for more than a day and a half after the wreck and thus may have already moved many miles. Even if the location can be pinpointed, the ocean depths may make recovering the black boxes difficult or impossible. And even if they're found, they might not contain the answer to what broght the plane down. On the other hand, if enough wreckage can be recovered, perhaps investigators can determine the root cause.

 

[FA Mikey]

Capt. total time 11,000 hours of which 1.700 was on the A330. one co pilot had 3,000 hours & the other 6,000 hours according to a CNN report.

Assuming the captain was at the controls, at the time. On an eleven hour flight, someone was on break.

 

[LGA777]

While I would normally hate to critize another respected carrier at such a difficult time but there is one thing that is bothering me. This event started late Sunday night and it's now miday Wednesday. AF 447 still shows in my airlines CRS system availabulity and on airfrance.com it still avilable for sale throughout the summer. When US 1549 ditched on Jan 15th the next day and beyonds flights where renumbered to US 1543 about 3 hours after the accident. I know this as the changes where came across my ops printer. The change would have been in other airlines and travel agents CRS systems overnight that night. I know AF is going thru a crisis right now but this is not their first accident, at the very least the new flight number should be on their own website by now.

Regards

LGA777